|
Server : Apache/2.4.62 System : FreeBSD fbsdweb2.web.rcn.net 14.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE releng/14.1-n267679-10e31f0946d8 GENERIC amd64 User : www ( 80) PHP Version : 8.3.8 Disable Function : NONE Directory : /domains/fatshado/ |
Upload File : |
<html>
<head>
<title>"The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing in ones guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing li</title>
<meta name="generator" content="Namo WebEditor v4.0">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#CC9966" text="black" link="blue" vlink="purple" alink="red">
<p>"<i>The work of preservation demands that the feelings
playing in ones guts not be turned into action. Just watch their
passing like cherry blossoms. - Maxine Hong
Kingston</i></p>
<p><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
1</span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;">I spaced out on
writing the page last week. I'm not sure why. Aaron
says to center writing in your life and the page has done
that for me, to a certain extent. But last week I just
didn't get to it very often. And now it's a new month. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-size:11pt;">The other day I was getting
on a bus. On this particular line the buses are new
and there are only two single seats. I prefer the single
seats but on these buses they are close together
and I do jam my knee when I sit in them. The bus
driver pulled up past me, and the three other people
at the stop got on before me, and I could not get my
seat. I was so angry. Sitting in the individual seats
protects me from dealing with other folks not wanting
to sit with me, so there is an emotional as well as
a physical comfort issue. But, I was just <b>so</b>
angry! I thought, so much for being an instrument of
peace. None of these people had done anything wrong.
The driver didn't pull up to a wrong spot. Everyone
likes those seats. So, I sat there, trying to be mindful
of my anger, trying to let it go. The bus remained fairly
empty and I was more comfortable sitting in the seat
that I ended up in than I would have been in the other
seats. Sigh. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
4</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Even before 9/11
things were fraught. 9/11 just dialed it up a few hundred
decibels. That was certainly true in terms of world
politics and economy. And it is true in terms of my
own personal process. My tendency is to feel as if my
individual issues pale in the face of the larger world
issues. If anyone else said that to me I would tell
them that their issues are part of the fabric of it
all. But somehow I don't remember that when I'm frustrated
and tired. I have always put my feelings through a gauntlet
of analysis. If I'm angry I weigh it relative to family
history, hormones, social embeddedness. Sometimes I
decide I am just simply angry. It makes my head
spin though. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
5</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> My dreams have
been crazy. A few days ago I had a restaurant dream.
One of the classics, in which I was being called upon
to wait on a crowd of people but I was not familiar
with the menu and it was all happening very quickly.
Last night I kept waking up thinking the phrase--they
bombed at the eighty ninth parallel. And I knew it was
a bad thing. What was interesting is that I've heard
that kind of phrase on the news and never really thought
about it in any exacting way. But I woke up so many
times with the phrase in my head that I began to think
about it. Of course it refers to a line on a map and
it may sound odd but I've just never had that so visually
clear to me. And when I woke up I thought it was Saturday.
I'm still feeling disoriented.</span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
6</span></h1>
<p><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> </span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> There is a mouse
in my house. Last night I him running across the living
room. This morning, when I went into the kitchen, there
was some crazy noise in the stove. It might have been
the mouse running around inside but I wasn't going to
open the door to find out. The last time I saw a mouse
and called the management company they put sticky traps
all over. I dreaded finding a mouse on them. I never
did. I just keep hoping that another apartment will
become more interesting. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
8</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> I don't know
why, but I had actually come to believe that we might
not bomb in Afghanistan. There seemed to be may voices
saying go slow, and there seemed to be an awareness
that Afghanistan was such a poor country that bombing
would be ... unseemly. I spent yesterday afternoon at
a teach in. There was an Afghan woman who talked about
her country before the war with Russia. Her family had
been part of a small but growing middle class. It was
very moving. It was comforting to among thinking people,
to the extent that I was. Of course, looking around
me I wasn't sure. Sometimes a crowd is just a crowd.
Still, it was better than CNN.</span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
10</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Mary Patrick
wrote a lovely piece about a series of deaths in her
life, her daughters question, "where do we go when
we die? ", and Mary's own experience of those deaths.
She also references the deaths of the people on 9/11.
After reading it I thought about a time in my life,
as I was becoming a teenager, when once a year,
for four years, someone died. I know it shaped
me in ways I may not understand. I clearly remember
the disorientation of feeling my own grief and watching
all the folks around me, none of whom knew any
of my family members, going on with life. Even at the
funerals, conversations about life ensued. It is a remarkable
thing to contemplate. As I sit in my lovely apartment,
at my computer,belly full of breakfast, somewhere someone
starves, dies. As life ends, life begins and life ends.
So how do we feel? How do we understand that process
and still strive to contribute? An awareness of impermanence
requires such trust. And then there is the anger. The
anger that we can not have what we love forever in the
form we have grown to love. It requires that we remember
something that can not be articulated in words</span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
11</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Getting to school
is kind of a pain. It's a two bus trip and shouldn't
be that bad. I walk one block to the first bus,
one more block from the first to the second bus,and
I get of at the base of Lone Mountain. I thought the
steps up that hill might be the worst part, but no.
The trip can take up to an hour. By car it might
be twenty minutes. Yesterday, I was almost there. I
was on the second bus, making relatively good time.
An older man got on the bus and yelled at the woman
bus driver for not pulling up close enough to the curb.
She took umbrage at his tone and said she wouldn't drive
the bus until he got off. A stalemate ensued.
I finally got off the bus and jumped in a cab. I think
the bus driver had a responsibility to get a totally
full bus of people to their destinations but part of
me admired her for not taking any shit. Of course
this old man couldn't have been more harmless and
maybe she should could have just let it all go. And
maybe she should have pulled up closer to the curb.
All I could think about was how tender and emotional
we all are. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
13</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Night before
last I went to hear <a href="http://www.citizen.org/" target="_blank">Ralph
Nader</a> and a group of local activists, including
<a href="http://www.hanksite.com/gaycomedy/h_tom.html" target="_blank">Tom
Ammiano</a>, <a href="http://www.medeaforsenate.org/biography.html" target="_blank">Medea
Benjamin</a> and <a href="http://64.78.45.52/index_home.htm" target="_blank">Michael
Franti</a> talk about the <a href="http://www.powertothepeople.org/features/solarpublic.html" target="_blank">MUD.</a>
Of course they also talked about the war. It is very
comforting to me to listen to intelligent people. A
friend pointed out that it sounded like a one sided
veiw. Well, yeah. Of course the other one sided view
is available every where else. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'> </span><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
15</span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> A few years ago,
in an attempt to understand things in the Middle East.
I read <i>From Beirut to Jerusalem</i> by Thomas L.
Friedman and <i>The History of God</i> by Karen Armstrong.
From these specific books I got a sense of how the Middle
East and Northern Africa were shaped by their resources
and their lack of them. Both portray a world where survival
is determined by a sense of entitlement. In other words,
in the desert, there aren't than many resources. So,
if someone takes your chicken, you better go get
it back, and take his goat, and hurt him badly enough
so that he doesn't EVER try to take anything of YOURS
again. But that was all a very long time ago. And we
have a lot more technology now. We can do things to
expand resources. Why aren't we? It's such a complex
situation. Most troubling is the way notions of God
are used to establish entitlement. Of course our own
president uses his notion of God to establish our entitlement.
Ironic. Tragic. Too limited a view. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
16</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Yesterday's entry
seemed a little oblique to me. It was one of those times
when I got in the middle of writing something and didn't
know what I was saying. I talked to Kara about it later.
I was worried that I was saying that the Arab world
had this war like history, as if the whole world doesn't.
I was trying to describe a particular characteristic
of way wars were begun and the extreme quality of them.
Somehow as I was writing it didn't seem useful. But,
It is something that I'm thinking about a lot these
days. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-size:11pt;">I got to spend a truly
luxurious amount of time with Kara yesterday. That
was a comfort. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
17</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> I'm often struck
by how many of my choices in life have been to choose
away from and not toward. I guess a more positive way
to say that is that in ways I've have chosen toward
the unknown at moments when the known was too miserable.
So, people who make choices with sense of ability to
accomplish, or attain, are mysterious to me. The simple
question --what do you want can put me into a kind of
paralysis. At the same time I'm enormously petulant
and know when I'm not getting what I want. But, too
often my choices are based on what I must do, or need
to do, and not what I want to do. I'm not alone
in this.</span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
18</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> The fact that
this is a public space is a bit disorienting. It's kind
of like a flier on a kiosk, in a room with ten thousand
kiosks. There are only a few people who are ever gonna
walk past and read this. But it has effected the way
that I think about the writing. At the same time, it is
the little square that I ask myself to fill every day.
It's my way of keeping myself thinking like a writer.
It's just been so difficult to negotiate my sadness
lately. So, my writing seems either highly rhetorical
or totally mundane. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-size:11pt;"> The mouse dominates
my living room. I haven't seen it for a few days but
I keep thinking I hear it. For some reason I don't worry
about it the day, but in the evening I'm always jerking
my head around thinking I see it. </span></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;"><b>October
19</b></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Yesterday, I
had a great conversation with Kristina in the morning.
The kind of conversation that makes you feel less alone,
mentally nourished, psychologically advanced, just feelin
a bit better about it all, despite the fact that "
it all "still exists. Later I went out to dinner
with Deb, and then we went to hear Paul Auster talk
about Charles Reznikoff, which was lovely. Auster made
Reznikoff seem like a dear and charming fellow, and
in doing that Auster seemed dear and charming. Then
I got home, returned a call to Tom and had another one
of those conversations. By the end of it all I was feeling
so much better than I've been feeling and I marveled
at the feeling. I mean conversation can be better than
any anti depressant. And the reverse is also, obviously,
true. Conversation can be the reason for needing antidepressants.
But yesterday I got lucky. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
20</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Generally, I
have trouble sleeping. I have trouble getting to sleep.
I wake up at least once, occasionally as many five or
six times during the night. If I've had a bad night
I am tired in the morning, but I just don't feel like
staying in bed. All day yesterday I felt like I wanted
to go back to sleep. Of course, I was doing things like
laundry, and cleaning the kitchen. Today I just decided
to stay in bed as long as I wanted, even if I was in
bed all day. I was up by 9:00. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-size:11pt;">There was a fellow on NPR
this morning talking about grief. He talked about the
early days of AIDS when people were dying one after
another and no one could fully grieve any one death.
he talked about people allowing themselves time, to
do what ever they need to feel through all this. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-size:11pt;">The way I'm feeling lately
is the way I felt during a four period of time when
members of my family died, one a year. It just seemed
like death would never stop. </span></span></p>
<p><i>"To make these uneasy arrivals alluring enough to
encounter -- the way Dante makes you want to harrow hell --
is a compelling challenge I'm being given, dangerously."
- </i>Aaron
Shurin</p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
24</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> Heard
<a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0798/bender/index.html" target="_blank">Aimee
Bender</a> last night. Very cool. One thing I hear writers
say again and again is that they committed to a time
every day in which they were going to write. I remember
a friend told me once that she begins each day by writing
in a wild chaotic manner, she called it writing off
the dross. That's what the page is suppose to do for
me. I get my cereal and my toast and coffee and juice
and vitamins and I head for the computer. I check e-mail.
I turn on KPFA. And then I write the page. But the
last two days I got to the write page part and I was
blank. I had been trying to pull myself up out of the
misery and all I succeeded in doing was going blank
for a few days. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
25</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> The
mouse is back. I hadn't seen it for almost a week. The
last time I had a mouse it just went away, so I was
hoping it would happen again. I got this thing that
is suppose to make the wires in the wall pulse in a
way that bothers mice, and then they stay away, and
I thought it was working. But, no. So, I guess I have
to deal with having a trap,or something. I don't wanna!!</span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
27</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> The
district elected board of supes in SF seemed progressive
and for me they were a life raft of political hope.
All through the city tax refund and the budget hearings
I remained hopeful. I wanted to believe that they were
getting their sea legs and would get stronger. And then
there was 9/11. Currently in SF, if a bunch of
shopping carts full of possessions are found they are
hauled off to a city site and held until someone one
picks them up. This assumes that a homeless person,
who returns to find their stuff, knows where to go to
get it and can get there. A piece of legislation to
put a sign on the carts, a warning, and give them a
day to move the stuff. Doesn't seem like a big deal.
The hearings on this have been fractious and this week
it seems to have sunk completely. I am still hoping
they are rewording it to get it and that it will still
go through, but hope is getting harder to sustain. There
are very progressive members of the board and there
are very conservative members but it's the members that
are likely to be a bit of both that seem to be becoming
more conservative. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
29</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> On
Friday, I went to an interview for a workshop. It turns
out that the time of the workshop doesn't work for me.
But, at one point I was being led to a interview room
and the person took me and another fellow up a flight
of stairs. I lagged behind. No one noticed. People moved
very fast. </span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">Yesterday
in church the usher sat two people in the pew with me
that made it impossible for my friend to sit. One of
the fellows was a bit large and when I'm in the pew
there really isn't even room for two average size people. It hit me in a weird place,
a hurt place and I left church. I came home and cried
for a while. I talked to Marilyn and felt better. My
friends at church are upset that I left. I need to hear
that they're upset that the usher was so totally insensitive.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">It's
about awareness. It's about the lack of awareness.
</span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
30</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> I
got to talk to Jo Ann last night. One of my top ten
favorite activities. While I was talking to her Mayor
Juliani was on CNN talking about Anthrax. I just
haven't wanted to take the anthrax thing seriously.
I thought it would stop. It doesn't seem to be stopping.
And, here in SF, I feel so far away from it all. Jo
Ann is right there in NYC. </span></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:12pt;">October
31</span></h1>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"> I've
been working on a piece of writing for a class and I'm
just not ... on the page. David use to say that to me.
" Your on the page!" I feel like a cartoon
character, hurling myself against the page and it bounces
my back. It a good enough effort to hand in but I'm
just not satisfied.</span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">I've
decided that since I can not seem to shake this depression,
I'm going to try to inhabit it with some dignity. I
feel like a balloon, pulling at the string, raising
higher and higher, farther and farther away. The string
that keeps me connected is all the people who love me
but I'm stretching it thin. One more pull and it'll
snap. and I'll just drift away.</span></span></p>
<p><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:AGaramond'><span style="font-family:AGaramond; font-size:11pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;">So,
I'm a cartoon balloon for Halloween. </span></span></p>
</body>
</html>